Paul Brians' Fruitcake

December 7, 1996

As featured in the Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2007. Reporter Susan Warren later wrote me to say “We did get your sample and we had great fun in our bureau with a taste test of several fruitcakes. I am pleased to tell you that your fruitcake was the universal favorite!”

Tired of jokes about your fruitcake? My recipe has converted a
lot of skeptics. The secret lies in avoiding those disgusting
glacéed cherries, citron, etc. that are packaged for use in fruitcakes.
This isn't exactly health food, but it's probably considerably
closer to what our ancestors enjoyed than the modern stuff.

The Fruit:

Amounts can vary wildly. If you want a dense, fruit-rich cake,
you'll need two or three pounds of fruit. Other people like a
more cakey texture and can use much less. It's all up to you.
But use good dried fruits, not glacéed ones. If you must use "organic"
stuff from your health food mart, go ahead; but try to avoid discolored
and over-dry fruit. Don't put anything in your cake that isn't
tasty eaten separately. My favorites: dried apples, pears, pineapple,
date bits, sliced apricot logs (go easy on the apricot--it can
overwhelm everything else), golden raisins and currants. I find
ordinary raisins boring, but you may like them. I add mango strips
and papaya bits for color and extra-rich flavor. A little fresh-grated
lemon or orange peel is a nice thing to add. Chop everything up
into suitably-sized bits with a heavy, sharp knife and place it
in your biggest bowl. A canning kettle will do. You can dust the
fruit with powdered sugar if it's too sticky to chop well. Look
for packaged fruit bits to save yourself trouble, but read the
label: some are mostly raisins.

The Soak:

Pour a cup or two of your favorite liquor or sweet dessert wine
over the fruit bits, toss them, and let them sit for a few hours
to absorb the liquid. Don't try to submerge them in liquid: just
moisten them. This softens the fruit and creates thousands of
tiny little sponges that will spread the flavor through your cake
much more efficiently than mere soaking after the cake is done.
Again, don't cheap out and use wine that's gone bad or is unpleasant-tasting;
but don't waste a fine burgundy on your fruitcake either. A dessert
wine too sweet for sophisticated palates may do just fine in a
fruitcake. Most of the time I use Myers's dark rum. If you are
avoiding alcohol, apple juice is a good substitute.

The Nuts:

Walnuts are fine. In a dark fruitcake the nuts mainly add crunch:
the spices overwhelm subtler-flavored nuts. But make sure they
are fresh. Walnuts turn rancid if not refrigerated. Personally
I use pecans because I love them and they look pretty. I splurged
on macadamia nuts one year but it was a waste of money because
you couldn't detect their buttery flavor in the end result; though
I've made a great Hawaiian fruitcake with fresh coconut, macadamia
nuts, and dried pineapple. Don't put the nuts in the marinating
fruits: they'll lose their crunch. Don't like nuts? Leave 'em
out. I like nuts, so I use a lot: a pound or more. I buy halves
and don't chop them because I like big pieces, but it's all a
matter of taste.

The Pans:

You'll want to prepare your pan or pans ahead of time. Fruitcake
cooks a long time and is very sticky, so getting it to come out
of the pans cleanly is a trick. You can use loaf pans, ring molds,
or whatever you like; but you'll need to line them. Even "nonstick"
coatings will be defeated by fruitcake. You can use baking parchment
if you have it; but I use a cheap substitute: greased pieces of
paper cut from brown paper bags. Don't use waxed paper; it dissolves
and shreds. If you're concerned about dyes, you can avoid the
printed portions of ordinary shopping bags. Grease the pans, line
them with paper (cut in as few pieces as possible, but without
wrinkles), then grease the paper and flour it.

The Batter:

This is essentially a classic pound cake with added spices. You
can use any recipe you like, but here's mine. If you're avoiding
butter, forget it. Substituting margarine or shortening will ruin
the recipe. What makes my fruitcakes taste special is that I always
begin with fresh whole spices (bought from the local food coop,
where I can get just the amount I need), ground in a small
coffee mill just before adding them to the recipe. This releases
many volatile oils and perfumes which are long gone in commercial
ground spices. I use a mill I bought just for spices; if you use
your coffee mill be prepared for spiced coffee for a while afterward.
Break nutmegs up a bit with a hammer or large knife before grinding them. Cloves
and nutmeg are moist, so you may want to grind them with a little
of the sugar. Soft "Mexican" cinnamon sticks grind nicely.
There is no such thing as "whole" mace. Because fresh-ground
spices are so pungent you will not need to increase the amounts
below; just roughly measure the spices before grinding. Substitute
preground spices if you must, but it won't be the same.

Cream the butter together with the sugar. Then beat in the eggs
one at a time, mixing thoroughly until it's light and fluffy.
Add cream of tartar as you beat the eggs. In a classic pound cake
the eggs are separated and the whites beaten to lighten the dough,
but we want a dense texture here. The eggs will provide just enough
leavening: no baking powder needed.

Sift the flour together with the salt and ground spices. Sprinkle
some of the flour mixture over the soaking fruit and toss it.
The idea is keep the fruit from sticking together. If you've been
too generous with your soaking liquid, you may have to add more
flour.

Add the spiced flour into the wet mixture a cup at a time, beating
it only long enough to produce a smooth, fairly thick batter.
Try to resist licking the batter if you're concerned about salmonella--but
you'll find it hard.

Stir the batter into the fruit, then add the nuts. Use a wooden
spoon or just plunge in with your hands and reminisce about what
fun it was to make mud pies when you were little. Mix it all up.
You will have a mixture that is mostly fruits and nuts with just
enough batter to hold it together.

Assembling and Baking:

Place the dough in the lined pans, pressing down to fill in the
corners. You can fill the pans almost to the brim because the
cake will rise only slightly. Place the pans in the lower third
of a 275 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 3 hours, until a knife or testing
straw comes out clean. Timing is extremely variable. Small cakes
will cook quicker, larger cakes take longer. Test each cake separately,
and take it out as soon as your tester comes out clean. You don't
want to dry out the cake. If it starts to burn before the inside
is done, cover the top with foil. You can't bake a fruitcake in
a hurry.

When the cakes are done, let them cool on racks for an hour or
so before trying to remove them from the pans. Use a knife to
loosen any stuck spots. Sprinkle them all over with your liquor
or juice to get the outsides good and moist. Traditionalists will
wrap cakes with soaked linen, but I find that enclosing them in
plastic bags works as well and is cheaper and more efficient.
Let them mature in the refrigerator or other cool space for at
least a couple of weeks to blend the flavors. Months is better;
but who thinks about making fruitcake in August? If they seem
to be getting dry, sprinkle on more liquid, but don't make them
sodden. The sugar and alcohol will retard spoilage; but once you
start serving this cake you're unlikely to discover how long it
might have lasted. It's too irresistible.